A few days ago, I had a chance to watch again a movie named Hotel Rwanda about the African conflict of the late nineties. It sparked my thought process to consider ‘struggle’ from a historical perspective.
The human spirit from time to time has faced enormous unheard of challenges which tend to destroy the very essence of a society. In the last sixty years, we as a Sikh nation too have gone down a very tough and sad road, one that wouldn’t normally be travelled on often, but we have gone through many a time. But civilization as a whole too has undergone a lot of pressure and has been stretched to sustain itself. I still remember when I came across Samuel Huntington’s essay in the nineties about the clash of civilization’s and how to an extent it showed it’s relevance to us; we as Sikhs are always being stretched to prove ourselves all of the time, simply to keep alive our identity and presence. Certainly more often than not, that is what we have been led to believe.
Naujawani.com being a young platform and a sustainable venture, can be a good tool in discussing and sharing our thoughts about various topics of great importance and relevance. I think I would like to initiate a dialogue about the pressures of sustaining the civilized world (if we do believe it is civilized), free from proving ourselves as individuals and enjoying freedom with dignity.
Freedom does come with a sense of liberty but also a high degree of responsibility. We as Sikhs aspire to freedom, but are confused about it’s liberty and the pursuit we have to engage in to enjoy the spirit of freedom. The yearning to be free is every individual’s aspiration; to sustain it, we must travel a delicate path to achieve it’s understanding asking questions of ourselves such as how it will enhance our happiness, how it will make me do what I do in a better way, no matter what I do…
Being free doesn’t give us an uplifted status or a heightened sense than other individuals, but it is a feeling to be grasped and upheld.
